Stupid Criminals: Facebook Edition

Stupid Criminals: Facebook Edition

By Christine Brown, Intern

I recently read a news article that showed the epitome of a person with a social media addiction or maybe this individual really wanted attention. The article is about a police standoff with a Utah man. Jason Valdez was informed that there were SWAT officers outside of his house when a friend posted on his Facebook. Valdez was in the middle of a standoff in which he was holding a woman hostage. The incident lasted from approximately eleven at night to seven in the morning. Upon finding out that SWAT was outside of his house he then replied, “Thank you homie. Good looking out.” The story gets better. Come to find out Valdez made not one, not two, but at least six posts while all of this was going on. The posts consisted of Valdez telling people he was in the middle of a standoff, including information about the hostage (whose name is Veronica), talking about how she was willingly with him, and pictures of himself with Veronica. But wait there is more. He received about one hundred comments that included words of support, pleads to surrender, and a friend that told him to “gun ner in the bushes stay low.” He also added about ten friends during the standoff. When SWAT officers invaded the house he shot himself in the chest and is currently in critical condition.

This situation makes it nearly impossible for me not to say, “you’ve got to be kidding me!” What is the world coming to? Not that I would ever put myself in that sort of situation, but if I were to take someone hostage, updating my Facebook status would be the least of my worries! I would think that a person would be more likely to try and find other ways to get out of the situation or at least take this with some seriousness. But I guess when you have from eleven p.m. to seven a.m., you have to find some way to keep yourself busy. Another thing I have to wonder is if any of the hundred people who replied to his status updates heard of obstruction of justice? Needless to say, the police do not know how to deal with this unusual situation because there is no precedent.

The last thing that I have to wonder for this situation is, has this man ever heard of Twitter? Maybe that would be a better social networking site for his nonsense.